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AD381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State by Charles Freeman

Charles Freeman's 2003 book The Closing of the Western Mind upset Christian theologians. So will this one. As before, he argues that the coming of Christianity terminated the tradition of free, tolerant debate that had prevailed in the classical world, replacing it with irrational dogma, enforced by savage persecution, that obstructed the advance of western thought for centuries. But his new book has a sharper focus, selecting as a defining moment the year AD381 when Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, required all his subjects to believe in a trinity, in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit were of equal majesty.

As Freeman explains, the problem of the relations between the members of the Godhead stemmed from the decision of the early church to adopt the old testament as part of Christian scripture. The cruel and vengeful God of the old testament was so obviously different from the Jesus